Mavrik
by The Author 1945
Summary: Most other countries have animal companions, and as such our little Israel decides its only fair that he should get one too. What kind of animal will he get and will his family approve? Read and find out! Author-series one-shot featuring a new character!


Hey everybody! It's me! The Author! Oh, don't pretend like you didn't miss me!

Now, you may have noticed that in Hetalia many of the characters have animal companions, Italy has Gino, Germany his dogs, Prussia Gilbird and so on. So I felt it's only fair to give Israel an animal companion! So what's it gonna be? Well I'm not gonna spoil the fic by telling you! Read on!

**_WARNING!: BEFORE YOU READ THIS BE SURE TO READ MY STORIES IN ORDER OR YOU WONT UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON! TO GET MY STORIES IN ORDER JUST CLICK MY NAME, THE AUTHOR 1945, AND LOOK UNDER 'MY STORIES_**!

...

* * *

"I'm back!" cried Israel, slamming the door behind him as he entered his home.

"Shalom, Eretz Yisrael," said Roy, walking up to his country.

"Shalom, Roy!" said Israel cheerily, taking off his yamaka, grabbing a newspaper and taking a seat on the nearby couch.

"How was your visit to your brother's house?" asked the guard.

"Good as always," replied Israel, looking up from his newspaper, "Akhi and me explored the forest a bit and we played with Tony and Tony said some really funny words again that Akhi told me not to repeat…oh! And we played with the whale again!"

"Sounds like fun," said Roy. At this point in his career he was used to Israel coming home with such odd stories of his friends and family.

"I really like Akhi's whale!" said Israel brightly, "he's fun! I like animals!"

Israel then got a thoughtful look on his face, then thought for a few seconds before saying, "hey, Roy?"

"Ken?"

"Why don't I have a pet like all the others?"

"Ma?" asked Roy, not really understanding what the boy was saying. Israel put his paper aside and sat up excitedly.

"Well," he said, "all the other countries have all these cool pets and I don't have one! And I love animals!"

"Did your brother say something against you getting an animal?"

"Lo."

"Your father?"

"Lo."

"Then I don't see why you _can't_ get one," said Roy with a slight smile, "there's a pet shop down the street from here, owned by some of the people from synagogue. You could go there tomorrow and get a pet."

"Good idea!" said Israel beaming and jumping around with childlike bounciness, "I could get a puppy like one of Aba's or a cat like Gino or…" Israel went on and on about all the different kinds of pets he could get. Roy just smiled and nodded, knowing his country would probably get none of the animals he listed.

...

* * *

Israel followed Roy's advice and the next day stopped by the pet shop.

"Shalom," he said to the shopkeeper behind the desk.

"Shalom, Eretz Yisrael," he said with a smile at the young nation, "nice to see you outside the synagogue for once!"

"Same to you!" said the boy with a polite nod towards the elder Israeli. Though he could be brash and abrasive, Israel was nice elder people, especially his own.

"What brings you to the shop?" asked the shopkeeper. Israel beamed.

"I want to get a pet!" he cried happily. The shopkeeper smiled a bit and raised an eyebrow at the country.

"Good place to start," he said, "I suppose I don't need to give you the responsibility speech?"

"Lo," said Israel, shaking his head. If Israel was responsible enough to take care of himself and live by himself, caring for a pet would probably not be any trouble.

"What kind of pet would you like?" asked the shopkeeper. Israel thought for a minute.

"I'm not so sure," he said, "can you show me some of the animals and then I can decide?"

"Certainly," said the shopkeeper, walking out from behind the desk, "come, we can look at the dogs first. They're in the back of the…"

"LOOK OUT!" came a sudden feminine cry as the shopkeeper's daughter came running towards them from the back of the store carrying a cage and chasing a gray steak that raced towards the shop door. Israel and the shopkeeper, startled, leapt out of the way as the girl leapt foreword and slammed the cage over the gray streak.

"Gotcha!" she cried in triumph, holding the cage foreword. The shopkeeper rubbed his temple as if he had a headache

"Don't tell me he got out _again_!" he cried in an annoyed tone. The girl nodded exasperatedly.

"Who?" asked Israel, looking confused. The girl held up the cage to him.

"This little troublemaker," she said angrily. Israel peeked in the cage and saw that the gray streak had really been a tiny rat with a clean, chic gray coat and shiny black eyes.

Israel smiled, "he's kinda cute!" he cried. The rat didn't look anything like the city rats his family had told him to avoid. "How could he be a troublemaker?"

"He may look harmless," said the shopkeeper, "but he's a clever one. He's somehow figured out how to escape his cage, no matter how much we reinforce it, he breaks out every time!"

Israel cocked his eye and looked at the cage, he noticed multiple locks on the hatches that were wide open.

"We had to put him in a separate cage because he kept letting all the other rats go," said the girl, glaring down at the rat. But Israel just grinned.

"He must be smart if he can break out of a locked cage so easily!" he said. "May I hold him?"

The father and daughter exchanged "what the heck is he getting at" looks, but the girl obeyed, opened the cage and dropped the rat unto the boy's hands.

Israel held the rat up to his face. The rat looked up at the boy curiously, tilting his little head as if to say "and you are?"

"Shalom, little guy!" greeted Israel brightly, "from what I've been told you are the clever one! We may have a bit in common!"

The rat seemed to understand the boy's words because his little black eyes shone some more and he gave Israel an affectionate lick on the nose. Israel giggled and the rat then ran up his sleeve and started to run around as Israel squirmed and laughed.

"Hey! Ha ha! Stop! That tickles. He he! Gyah! Stop! Ha!" The rat then popped his head out of Israel's shirt collar and crawled out, sitting himself on the boy's shoulder. Israel smiled.

"Hey! I'm like Big brother England when he was a sailor! Arg!" said Israel. The Holy Land looked at his two shell-shocked citizens and said, "I think I've found my pet!"

"_Pet_!?" repeated the girl in shock, "Eretz Yisrael, are you sure that…"

"Ken!" cried the shopkeeper suddenly beaming at realizing this was a great way to get rid of the rat and make his country happy, "ken! He's all yours!"

"Akla!" cried the boy, patting the rat on the head, "since you're so smart, I'll call you Mavrik!" He looked back at the shopkeeper and said, "How much will he cost…?"

"He's free!" cried the shopkeeper quickly, "he's no charge! And everything you need to care for him is free! The cage the food the wheel! Free! Just remember_, no refunds_."

...

* * *

The next week:

"COUNTOFF!"

"Uno!"

"Ni!"

"Shalosh!"

Germany gave a curt nod and then began to pace back and forth in front of his trainees.

"For today's training," he said in a disciplinary tone, "we shall talk about the importance of strate-"

Germany suddenly paused and stared at Israel's shoulder where sat a small rat. He blinked and the rat had disappeared.

"Strata-what?" asked Italy, as Germany continued to stare at Israel's shoulder.

"What's wrong, Aba?" asked Israel, looking concerned. Germany shook his head.

"I-its nothing…thought I saw…probably just haven't been getting enough sleep," Germany muttered, and then he cleared his thought and went back to his drill-sergeant stance.

"As I was saying," he said, continuing to pace, "strategy is one of if not the most important things to have when on a battle field. You need to be two steps in front of your enemy at all tiiiii…"

Germany suddenly stopped to stare at Israel's shoulder, where the rat had reappeared. The German rubbed his eyes and looked again and the rat was gone.

"B-but…" Germany stuttered.

"Aba are you okay?"

"I-but…I saw…"

"Abaaa," said Israel, giving his father a stern stare, "do we need to call the nice therapist again?"

"Nein!" said Germany, he spun around and started to pace in the other direction but he kept glancing over his shoulder at Israel. "Strategy..." he said, "is desperately...needed in order to...ensure…a victor…"

Then he glanced back and this time he saw the rat clear as day as it crawled out of Israel's collar and sat on the boy's shoulder. He spun around and glared at the rat.

"Israel," he whispered urgently, "don't move. There's a vermin on you."

Italy and Japan looked at Israel, saw the rat, widened their eyes and then simultaneously took a cautious step away from their young comrade. Israel looked surprised.

"A vermin?" he whispered in shock, not thinking his Aba could possibly be referring to his domesticated pet, Mavrik.

Germany nodded and slowly approached the boy so as not to alarm the rat, "don't worry, I've got it. Just don't move. That's right, just hold still while I…_Got it_!"

Germany suddenly grabbed Mavrik right off of the boy's shoulder and cupped the rat in his hands. "It's a fierce one!" he cried as Mavrik hissed, squeaked and struggled.

"What is it? What is it?" asked Israel excitedly.

"Ve!" cried Italy, looking frightful as Germany tried to squeeze the life out of the rodent, "Germany caught a rat that was on your shoulder Izzy!"

"Look away, Israel," said Germany as he squeezed, "It'll be dead in a few…"

"LO!" cried Israel, realizing what rat it was that his father had caught, he ran forward, pried his father's hands open and grabbed his pet.

"_Are you okay, Mavrik_?!" cried Israel, holding the rodent in his palms, stroking his ruffled gray fur. Mavrik gasped and looked like he was about to have a heart attack, but he was all right.

Israel sighed with relief that his pet was okay, then turned to his father, eyes wide with shock.

"Aba!" he cried, "Mavrik's not a vermin. He's my pet!"

It took a few seconds for the boy's words to register to the already stunned German, when they did so he looked at Israel as if he were insane.

"Your _pet_?!" he repeated in an unbelieving tone. Israel smiled and nodded.

"Uh huh! I got him last week at the shop! I keep him in my shirt and on my shoulder and sometimes under my hat! He's really smart and can get out of cages all by himself so I don't bother to lock the cage, I just let him run around the house but that's okay because he likes me so much and he doesn't try to leave or…"

"A _rat_," Germany interrupted, "is _your pet_?!"

"Well he's certainly not a hamster," said Israel jokingly. Germany sighed and rubbed his temples as if he had a migraine.

"Israel," he said sternly, "you do realize how many racist stereotypes you're enforcing by keeping that thing," he said angrily. Nazis and anti-Semites in general typically compared Jews to diseased rats. Germany remembered the propaganda posters and films like it was yesterday. _Wherever the rats turn up, they bring destruction to the land…just as the Jews do to mankind..._

Israel nodded, knowing of such things, but a determined and stubborn look came to his eyes as he said, "so? Who cares? Those who would believe such things today would still believe it weather or not I owned Mavrik. Anyway, he's _not_ a dirty alley rat; he's a domesticated pet rat. He's had all his shots!"

Germany, however, still looked unconvinced.

"I forbid it," he said harshly, "I will not have my s…friend keeping a vermin in his house. Rats are diseased by nature, Israel. There's no curing a rat of its nature. Vermin is not to live around human beings, and if it gets too close it is to be killed."

"Ah, Doitsu-san," said Japan, "excuse me, but I think you should examine your words more carefully." He made quotation marks with his fingers as he quoted his friend, "'_No keeping vermin in his house. It is a vermin. Diseased by nature. No curing it of its nature. Not to live around proper human beings. Should be killed.'"_

"Was…ooohh…" said Germany realizing where Japan was going with this. He shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably and looked at the ground in thought for a few seconds, then sighed and said, "fine."

"Ken!" cried Israel happily.

"But you can't just have him running around with no identification that he is domesticated or somebody will think he is an alley rat," said Germany, "you need to have some way of showing that he is yours."

"You mean like a collar or a badge or something?" said Israel, "That'd be cool, but I'm not sure where I could get something like that…"

"Oh! Ve! Ve! I do!" cried Italy waving his arm around, "right here!" Italy reached into his pocket and took out a tiny, thin ribbon that had the design of Israel's flag on it. He handed it to the boy.

"Tie this around his neck!" said Italy. Israel beamed, thanked the Italian, and carefully began to do so.

"Where did you get that ribbon from?" asked Germany suspiciously. Italy smiled and yanked out a whole chain of ribbons designed with the flags of all the countries.

"Ve~ I have one for everyone! Would you like yours, Germany?" he asked cheerily, holding out the tricolor ribbon of Germany's flag to the German nation. Germany slapped his palm to his forehead and shook his head. Italy shrugged and put the chain back in his pocket.

"Done!" cried Israel happily. Mavrik straightened up importantly at his new bowtie ribbon. "You look spiffy, Mavrik!" cried Israel happily.

"Rats cant look spiffy."

"Doitsu…"

"Alright! Alright! I get it! No more anti-ratite comments!"

...

* * *

The next week after the world meeting was over, America and Germany exited the boardroom together, Germany trying to convince America.

"Bitte, talk some sense into your brother, America," he said, "tell him to get rid of that rat and get a proper pet!"

America, however, just smiled. "HA HA HA! I don't see why he shouldn't own Mavrik, I kind of like him!"

"It's _a rat_!"

"And you're _a German_," said America with a shrug, "let him keep Mavrik if he really likes him. It's like he said, who cares what the crazies think?"

"Me!" said Germany in exasperation, "I don't want him getting insulted any more by the Arab nations."

"If they insult him I'll beat them up again," said America light-heartedly, "no big deal."

"Well, when he gets made fun of and starts crying, I wont say I told you so!"

"Won't say I told you so about what?" came a voice from behind. Germany froze and America beamed as they both turned to see the young Jewish nation with Mavrik on his shoulder.

"I-Israel!" stuttered Germany.

"Heya, Izzy!" cried America, patting his brother on the head, "hey, Mavy!" he said patting Mavrik on the head as well. Mavrik gave a happy squeak, then glared and hissed at Germany, who he had not forgiven for calling him a diseased vermin and trying to kill him.

"Shalom Akhi, shalom Aba!" said Israel brightly.

"I'm not your Aba!"

"What were you two talking about?" asked Israel. Germany went red with embarrassment and hesitated. America didn't.

"G here was just trying to get me to tell you to get rid of Mavrik."

"America!"

"Well you were."

Israel frowned and gave his father a stern look. "Aba, you said I could keep Mavrik."

"Ja," said Germany with a nod, "but I never said I wouldn't try and convince you otherwise."

Israel rolled his eyes. Aba could try all he liked, but Israel wasn't getting rid of Mavrik. And Israel was quite stubborn and firm when it came to what he wanted or didn't want.

The three walked on, Germany continuously asking Israel to reconsider his stance on Mavrik, Israel stubbornly saying no and America siding with Israel, when they ran into trouble.

"Hey, Zionist!" cried Syria, suddenly appearing in front of the three. The trio glared and America and Germany took up a defensive stance. Israel, however, stepped foreword, returning his enemy's glare.

"What do you want, Ass-Syria?" said Israel, grinning mischievously. Syria's hateful glare intensified at that.

"Don't call me that!" he yelled, "its bad enough that I have to put up with that from the other Arabs much less a Jewish…"

"COMPLETE THAT SENTENCE AT YOUR PERIL, SYRIA!" yelled Germany. Syria brushed off the German's threat and instead his eyes traveled to Mavrik.

"What's this?" he said with a smirk, "your Siamese twin?"

"I told you," Germany hissed to America, who held up a hand to silence him.

Israel stood his ground. "Lo, he's my pet, and I know for a fact that his intelligence exceeds yours by several million brain cells."

It took a few seconds for Syria to work out the insult, and when he did so he clenched his fists.

"Don't you insult me!" he yelled in fury.

"It wasn't an insult to any party, I was merely stating a fact," said Israel with a smirk.

"I'm smarter then you or that dirty rat!" yelled Syria. Israel's eyes widened.

"Shouldn't have said that," he said in a warning tone. Syria cocked an eyebrow.

"Why? What do you-" Syria started, but he got his answer as Mavrik let out a furious squeak and suddenly leapt from Izzy's shoulder unto Syria's face, hissing, biting and clawing at the Syrian's face.

"GYAHH! GET IT OFF_! GET IT OFF_!" cried Syria. Israel allowed Mavrik to claw at his enemy's face for a little while (smiling as he watched) then gave a whistle. Mavrik stopped his attack immediately, leapt off Syria's face and ran over to Israel who promptly picked him up.

"Good boy, Mavrik," said Israel, smiling widely. Mavrik cooed as Israel stroked his head. Syria ran off crying in pain ("even his pet's a demon_! Demon_!")

"That'll teach you!" cried Israel to his retreating enemy. He turned back to his brother and father. America smiled widely, having already seen Mavrik's ferocity in action. Germany, however, looked dazed.

"He _hates _being called dirty," Israel explained as Mavrik promptly began to groom himself.

Germany decided to tone down his rhetoric of Mavrik.

...

* * *

That would be a smart idea, Germany.

Translations:

Hebrew: Mavrik= brilliant

Mavrik: Now would be a good time to say that since I am a Jew I get free reign to make jokes on Jewish stereotypes and such.

As for Mavrik, I have two reasons for making him Israel's pet, and a rat. For one, rats get a bad reputation all around for carrying diseases. However, to paraphrase Hans Landa, the average rat carries no more diseases then the average squirrel, but calling somebody a squirrel isn't an insult for some reason. It's all perception and stereotypes. Rats, when domesticated, are very clean and nice pets. And they are also quite intelligent (how do you think they get around mazes?)

Second, I looked up Israel's birth year on the Chinese calendar and it turns out the year he was born (1948) is the year of the rat. What's funny about this is I didn't find this part out until after I already had the Mavrik character established. Those born under the year of the rat are described as being "talkative, charming, capable of surviving any situation, intelligent, curious and with a bright imagination, though they have the tendency to get aggressive."

Yeah, that sounds on the mark.

Jews being compared to rats in Nazi Germany: in every anti-Semitic society known to man, the Jews have been compared to disease carrying rats. This includes but is not limited to Nazi Germany, the Medieval Europeans, and every single crazy terrorist group to date such as Hamas.

_Wherever the rats turn up, they bring destruction to the land…just as the Jews do to mankind:_ that is a quote from the famously anti-Semitic nazi propaganda film, Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew). Yes, I sat through the whole thing. _The whole f***ing thing. It was painful._

*****Groan*** **okay, that's all for this fic, folks. I'm going to go try and knock that s_ excuse for a film out of my head. If I don't give myself brain damage, I'll be back soon with the next fic.

Author Personal note: Just got back from a vacation, sorry this is kind of late but I barely managed to update on time! I had a wedding to go to in New York City! Let me just say: JEWS! JEWS EVERYWHERE!

See you soon!


End file.
